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Just brought a copy of November Tractor and Machinery and there's a good write up about Rural Past Times. Heres some photos.

Need a few pigs in the 4x4 and a couple of surfboards on the Woody

Made some progress on dismantling inspection of this engine. The nut came off the fan end ok. Looks promising so far. With a freed up crank 'n' piston, proceeded to carefully pull the cylinder. Quite surprised to find the internal condition pretty good before cleaning.........thought you may like to see what the size of the Piston rings used to be 96 years ago- To give you an idea, the bore diameter is 70mm. 2 of the 3 rings were stuck in their grooves initally, but just after I took this, they'd gently sprang out and all good so far. Quick look at the uncleaned bore is also promising which is dead smooth as far as can see-

Thanks Norm, it's good to have it driving after all this time. Soooo, what does it drive like? Well, very good as it happens.. MadTrax feels very stable and planted with not even a hint of "it's going to topple over" Oh, and it's fast... In high ratio of course.. Trying to work out the gearing is impossible, so I'm going to guess it will top out about 80mph.. Not that I fancy doing that sort of speed on a quad of course Off road it's just as good, it feels almost unstoppable. Rob and I were testing it by driving across deep ruts back and forth.. Eventually it started spinning the rear wheels, flick the switch to 4x4 mode and it pulled it's self out straight away.. Amazingly despite the testing abuse nothing broke! Me happy with that A few minor little problems to sort.. During the off road testing MadTrax did get rather hot, in a "needle in the red" sort of way! Part of the problem was an airlock in the cooling system, of course the highest point is where the temp sender is! As the water level in the expansion tank is no longer dropping I guess all the air has gone out the system.. The other part of the problem is while riding MadTrax, the engine is at high RPM but the quad isn't moving that fast to push cold air through the rad.. So I have got an extra cooling fan to fix to the outside of the rad, it should help things out.. One thing the engine is doing that I wish it wouldn't is it's running very rich! The carbs have already been cleaned out, so a bit of carb tuning and balancing will be done when MadTrax goes back together.. I did try and get some off road video footage, but for some reason I was having a bad camera day and didn't notice the camera was already recording.. So when I hit the "start recording" button to film the action, I was actually stopping recording! The end result was I had mostly footage of "the bits inbetween" rather than the action! No photo's other than this screen grab of MadTrax ripping up the grass.. The smoke is from the over fueling! MadTrax is now back up on the bench ready to be pulled apart tomorrow or Friday. Lot's of bit's to be "fully welded up", and painted.

Well done guy's, as Head Exam say's, "Very Deserving"

Have to go back to the 70's Alain to beat the first Custom Roller 'of-a-sort'. I saw this thing back around 1973 at the Brighton Speed Trials along the marine Parade. He had engine issues at the time and only made 86mph over the standing 1/4 mile. Standing 20 feet away from it made your stomach resonate when at 1/2 throttle. Only 27 litres.......... (Merlin from a Tank). Couple of links here- Also a response from Rolls- LINK

I took my mate a 16 foot trailer full of split wood (2 ricks)to his house besides what I've kept, looks like about 5-6 ricks off this tree when all said and done.

A close friend of mine sold me his 1953 Ford Jubilee tractor and brush cutter for the sum of 1 dollar and further consideration in keeping him in fresh vegetables. I didn't know it at the time, but next week he is also bringing me a Cub Cadet 1650, and 1250 with a rotovator and cutting decks, along with an old Allis garden tractor, all stuff stored in his shed for many years. The second garden planting is producing massive amounts of squash, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, okra and melons. The sun room has a new door and all windows are sealed up ready to be a winter greenhouse and solar heat for part of the inside. I cut up a giant maple that fell in a storm and got most of the wood split. I have 10 feet of 48" diameter trunk left. My Friend Ralph came over and wanted a picture of him in front of the large piece of wood I had placed upon the wood splitter. He does this often, comes over and puts on work gloves then wants me to send pictures to him that show him working, notice he is on the wrong side of the splitter to work the hydraulics, strange fellow. I think he is an actor in life, he never really does anything, nice guy, but you cant count on him. My 1982 Homelite 410 with 68cc and a 24" Oregon bar cut through that tree like it was shrubbery. I will have to break out the 110cc Homelite Super 1050 with the 30" bar for the rest of the trunk

I thought that too. You got some nice logs for the fire Alain and sounds like you have struck a cool deal with that Ford and the rest of the garden tractors coming your way. Gone to a good home I say. Your mate looks too clean and tidy to have fine any actual work!

Got to keep them going, .plus a good learning experience.

Very deserving.

Well done. I've always liked the little Kubota's.

A sunny Sunday I recall, about 70 degrees F. Near the start point for me/us. He had to remove the rear silencers for some reason to do the run(s)?. I seem to remember it being more pink in colour, also shown on the cover of Custom Car Mag earlier in the year. Ah!, those were the days. Cars, Girls and country Pubs to chill out at.

I was there that weekend Richard, as I remember Johns crew chef was driving a shadow with all his tools and kit thrown in the back

The "gold" is faded red and the grey is Ford Grey. Ford didn't start using blue on American tractors to the early 60's. I think the Fordsons got blue early on.

That Fords been painted up like a Massey Ferguson. Grey body work and gold engine etc.

Good to see it running, Ian.

Pictures after work carried out -

My 1969 Bolens 1476 Hydrostatic with the 14 hp S-14D Wisconsin has a 48" shaft drive deck that I can mow the cow pasture and not have any issues, three foot grass isn't a problem, I have 27"x 9.50"- 15" Duro Frontier All Terrain tires on the back and original Goodyear 5.30-8 tires on the front. The hydro unit holds 11 quarts of transmission fluid inside a solid cast iron rear end and trans axle and weighs a little over 1,000 ponds without a deck or implements; I have two of these. My 1973 Allis Chalmers 416 Shuttle has 48" belt drive right hand discharge deck and a 16 hp single cylinder cast iron Kohler K341 engine mated to a 4 speed Hydro, Yep, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th gear is both infinite forward and reverse. Rear tires are 25"x 10"-12" Carlisle All Trails with 25 pounds of weights on each wheel with 4" axle extenders to give it a real wide track or you can remove them and install them on the outside to mount a set of dual wheels, Fronts are smooth ribbed 16x6.50-8 for easy turn and easy on the turf. This machine was only built one year and I have two other A/C 416s true Hydro units as well. These are the two machines I use to mow this year, next year I will charge two more for mowing duties. This keeps them up and running, but not overburdened.